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Being Jewish in 2025: How the Light Gets In
Leonard Cohen in concert in 2008. Photo: Wikipedia.
Several years ago, I took my son — then barely a year old — to the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side of New York to see the exhibition Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything.
I remember stopping outside the museum, his stroller facing a large poster of Cohen’s face. The words of his lyric stretched across it: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” My son couldn’t read, of course, but he stared at that image intently, as if trying to make sense of what all the grown-ups were looking for. It was a tender, ordinary afternoon in New York; a father and child visiting an exhibit, a small act of continuity in a busy city.
I didn’t know, then, how much those words would matter. I didn’t know we would soon live through a pandemic that would empty museums, synagogues, and schools; that we would witness October 7 and the eruption of antisemitism across campuses and public life; or that our civic order itself would begin to feel so fractured. “A crack in everything” turned out not to be metaphorical. It became the condition of our world.
This fall, I returned to the Jewish Museum with that same son, now old enough to read and to ask questions. The museum has been newly curated, and for the first time in years, it feels unmistakably Jewish — rooted, confident, and proud of its inheritance. Where the earlier exhibit and show universalized Cohen’s lyric into a cultural meditation, the new curation situates Jewish endurance at its center. On the fourth floor, in large letters on the wall, the lyric reappears: “There is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
Standing there with my son, I realized how the meaning had changed, not in the words, but in us.
Cohen wrote these words as part of his song, “Anthem,” most likely as a meditation on imperfection and redemption. Its refrain — “Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering” — rejects the false purity of utopianism. It is a deeply Jewish idea: the world is broken, and we are called to repair it, not replace it. The crack is not a flaw to be sealed over; it is the aperture through which holiness enters.
In the years since COVID-19 and October 7, I have found myself returning to this idea again and again. We have endured illness, isolation, and war; the rise of antisemitism on campuses and in the streets; and a moral confusion that has left many young Jews disoriented. In all of it, Cohen’s words have felt like instruction, not sentiment. They remind us that despair is easy but empty, and that to be Jewish is to choose life even in the face of fracture.
When the Jewish Museum chose to display this line so prominently, it was making a quiet but profound statement: that Jewish art, faith, and memory are not defined by victimhood or perfectionism, but by resilience. The museum, like Cohen’s song, acknowledges the world’s cracks and then insists that light can still enter through them.
The museum itself embodies this renewal. By firmly embracing its Jewish identity, the museum has become what it was meant to be: a cultural and spiritual home, not merely a secular art space with Jewish footnotes.
Hebrew inscriptions are allowed to stand proudly, ritual objects are presented as living tools rather than anthropological artifacts, and modern works converse openly with ancient forms. It situates Jewish creativity not as a curiosity within modernity but as a moral partner to it.
That, too, echoes Cohen. His art was never about erasing tension between the sacred and the profane, but holding it. His Judaism was both universal and particular, both Montreal and Jerusalem, both psalm and protest.
When we reached the upper gallery, my son stopped before a remarkable Torah scroll, preserved under glass. The scroll, with its Hebrew letters still dark and deliberate, was said to have been desecrated by British soldiers in 1776, when the New York congregation fled the city with General Washington’s retreating troops. It now sits restored and revered, the centerpiece of the museum’s reimagined space. I watched my son peer into the glass, his reflection hovering over the ancient words. It was as if he were seeing the story of endurance itself: the unbroken chain of reading, repair, and renewal that defines Jewish life. Behind him, an ornate ark shimmered with gold and blue, a reminder that even in exile, beauty and faith persist.
In that moment, Cohen’s line — “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”- – felt literal. The glass case reflected both fragility and illumination. A text once defiled now stands at the center of a museum reborn. My son’s gaze met that light, and I thought: this is how transmission happens; not through lectures or manifestos, but through wonder, through seeing something both broken and whole.
There is also a civic lesson here. Cohen’s “crack in everything” is really about how communities respond to brokenness. Liberal democracy, too, depends on the belief that imperfection is not fatal — that disagreement and difference can coexist with shared purpose.
In today’s cultural climate, that belief is under strain.
But the Jewish tradition — and the American civic tradition — teach the opposite. They teach that truth and light emerge through argument, through the wrestling Jacob undertakes with the angel, through the contestation of the prophets and the debates of the Talmud.
“Ring the bells that still can ring,” Cohen says — meaning, use what still works, and keep faith with what remains, even when it is partial or cracked. Civic renewal depends on that same spirit. The Jewish Museum’s new presentation is an act of such faith. It does not paper over pain, nor does it instrumentalize suffering. It invites viewers — Jewish and not — to see continuity amid rupture. And in doing so, it offers a civic model: that communities can be honest about their wounds without surrendering their worth.
This lesson feels especially urgent after October 7. The massacre in Israel and the subsequent eruption of antisemitism across the West have revealed just how fragile moral clarity has become. Many institutions that speak endlessly of justice have struggled, or refused, to name evil when it targeted Jews. The cracks in our civic and moral order were exposed. And yet, even here, light can enter.
In my discussions over the years with the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, he often reminded me of a truth at the heart of our tradition: Our task is not to perfect the world but to begin the work, knowing it will never be complete. That sentiment has never felt more relevant.
Leaving the museum that afternoon, my son looked up at the inscription one last time. “That’s a good idea,” he said, in the simple way children speak when they sense something true. It was a moment of grace; a reminder that memory, art, and faith can transmit strength even across generations that know only fragments of what came before. Someday he may bring his own child here and look again into that same glass, seeing both the cracks and the light and know they belong to him.
Cohen’s lyric is not only a song; it is a theology of hope. The Jewish Museum’s decision to foreground it is an affirmation that Jewish culture remains, at its core, a beacon of light amid brokenness. And that lesson is one America needs desperately right now: that cracks are not endings but invitations — inspirations to rebuild, to renew, and to let the light in.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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German Antisemitism Commissioner Targeted With Death Threat Letter After Arson Attack on Home
Andreas Büttner (Die Linke), photographed during the state parliament session. The politician was nominated for the position of Brandenburg’s anti-Semitism commissioner. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa via Reuters Connect
Andreas Büttner, the commissioner for antisemitism in the state of Brandenburg in northeastern Germany, has been targeted the second attack in under a week after receiving a death threat, sparking outrage and prompting local authorities to launch a full investigation.
According to the German newspaper Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten (PNN), the Brandenburg state parliament received a letter on Monday threatening Büttner’s life, with the words “We will kill you” and an inverted red triangle, the symbol of support for the Islamist terrorist group Hamas.
State security police have examined the anonymous letter under strict safety measures, determining that a gray substance inside was harmless. Authorities are now probing the incident as part of an ongoing investigation into threats against the German official.
Ulrike Liedtke, president of the Brandenburg state parliament, condemned the latest attack on Büttner, describing the death threats and harassment as “completely unacceptable.”
“Threats and violence are not a form of political discourse, but crimes against humanity,” Liedtke said. “Andreas Büttner has our complete support and solidarity.”
A former police officer and member of the Left Party, Büttner took office as commissioner for antisemitism in 2024 and has faced repeated attacks since.
On Sunday night, Büttner’s private property in Templin — a town located approximately 43 miles north of Berlin — was targeted in an arson attack, and a red Hamas triangle was spray-painted on his house.
The home of Germany’s antisemitism commissioner, Andreas Büttner, was set on fire overnight in a targeted attack.
His family was inside the house at the time.
This is the second attack against Büttner in the past 16 months. His car was previously vandalized with swastikas. This… pic.twitter.com/cAbFnMIwQ7
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) January 5, 2026
According to Büttner, his family was inside the house at the time of the attack, marking the latest assault against him in the past 16 months.
“The symbol sends a clear message. The red Hamas triangle is widely recognized as a sign of jihadist violence and antisemitic incitement,” Büttner said in a statement after the incident.
“Anyone who uses such a thing wants to intimidate and glorify terror. This is not a protest, it is a threat,” he continued.
Hamas uses inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. The symbol, a common staple at pro-Hamas rallies, has come to represent the Palestinian terrorist group and glorify its use of violence.
In August 2024, swastikas and other symbols and threats were also spray-painted on Büttner’s personal car.
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Harvard President Blasts Scholar Activism, Calls for ‘Restoring Balance’ in Higher Ed
Harvard University President Alan Garber speaks during the 374th Commencement exercises at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University president Alan Garber, fresh off a resounding endorsement in which the Harvard Corporation elected to keep him on the job “indefinitely,” criticized progressive faculty in a recent podcast interview for turning the university classroom into a pulpit for the airing of their personal views on contentious political issues.
Garber made the comments last week on the “Identity/Crisis Podcast,” a production of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jewish think tank which specializes in education research.
“I think that’s where we went wrong,” Garber said, speaking to Yehuda Kurtzer. “Because think about it, if a professor in a classroom says, ‘This is what I believe about this issue,’ how many students — some of you probably would be prepared to deal with this, but most people wouldn’t — how many students would actually be willing to go toe to toe against a professor who’s expressed a firm view about a controversial issue?”
Garber continued, saying he believes higher education, facing a popular backlash against what critics have described as political indoctrination, is now seeing a “movement to restore balance in teaching and to bring back the idea that you really need to be objective in the classroom.”
He added, “What we need to arm our students with is a set of facts and a set of analytic tools and cultivation of rigor in analyzing these issues.”
Coming during winter recess and the Jewish and Christian holidays, Garber’s interview fell under the radar after it was first aired but has been noticed this week, with some observers pointing to it as evidence that Harvard is leading an effort to restore trust in the university even as it resists conceding to the Trump administration everything it has demanded regarding DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), viewpoint diversity, and expressive activity such as protests.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Garber has spent the past two years fighting factions from within and without the university that have demanded to steer its policies and culture — from organizers of an illegal anti-Israel encampment to US President Donald Trump, who earlier this year canceled $2.26 billion in public money for Harvard after it refused to grant his wishlist of reforms for which the conservative movement has clamored for decades.
Even as Harvard tells Trump “no,” it has enacted several policies as a direct response to criticisms that the institution is too permissive of antisemitism for having allowed anti-Zionist extremism to reach the point of antisemitic harassment and discrimination. In 2025, the school agreed to incorporate into its policies a definition of antisemitism supported by most of the Jewish community, established new rules governing campus protests, and announced new partnerships with Israeli academic institutions. Harvard even shuttered a DEI office and transferred its staff to what will become, according to a previous report by The Harvard Crimson, a “new Office of Culture and Community.” The paper added that Harvard has even “worked to strip all references to DEI from its website.”
Appointed in January 2024 as interim president, Garber — who previously served in roles as Harvard’s provost and chief academic officer — rose to the top position at America’s oldest and, arguably, most prestigious institution at a time when the job was least desirable. At the time, Harvard was being pilloried over some of its students cheering Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel and even forming gangs which mobbed Jewish students wending their way through campus; the university had suffered the embarrassment of its first Black president being outed as a serial plagiarist, a stunning disclosure which called into question its vetting procedures as well as its embrace of affirmative action; and anti-Israel activists on campus were disrupting classes and calling for others to “globalize the intifada.”
Garber has since won over the Harvard Corporation, which has refused to replace him during a moment that has been described as the most challenging in its history.
“Alan’s humble, resilient, and effective leadership has shown itself to be not just a vital source of calm in turbulent times, but also a generative force for sustaining Harvard’s commitment to academic excellence and to free inquiry and expression,” Harvard Corporation senior fellow Penny Pritzker said in a statement issued on behalf of the body, which is the equivalent of a board of trustees. “From restoring a sense of community during a period of intense scrutiny and division to launching vital new programs on viewpoint diversity and civil discourses and instituting new actions to fight antisemitism and anti-Arab bias, Alan has not only stabilized the university but brought us together in support of our shared mission.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Holocaust Survivors Sent Care Packages to Oct. 7 Hostages for Hanukkah
The Menorah for Hanukkah on the Square 2025 in Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom, Dec. 14, 2025. Photo: Matthew Chattle/Cover Images via Reuters Connect
Survivors of the Holocaust spread holiday cheer this Hanukkah by delivering care packages to a group of 20 hostages whom the terrorist group Hamas recently released from captivity to fulfill the requirements of a ceasefire which suspended hostilities with Israel.
The gifts, dropped off at the Israeli consulate office in New York City, was made possible by The Blue Card, the only US-based charity organization which provides financial assistance and other services to survivors of the Holocaust. Originally founded in 1934 to assist Jews who had fled Germany to escape Hitler’s persecution of the country’s Jews, it has operated ceaselessly for nearly a century.
Over the past two years, the world has seen a revival of antisemitism unlike any since the period in which The Blue Card was founded, sparked by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that claimed the lives over of 1,200 Israelis and stole years and even more lives from 251 more who were kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza.
Some of the hostages who survived captivity have been released in stages since Israel and Hamas agreed on a ceasefire in October, and on Monday, Blue Card executive director Masha Pearl said the organization felt it necessary to reach out to them due to their having experienced a plight that is painfully familiar to what its clients endured in Europe during the Holocaust. Pearl also discussed the Bondi Beach mass shooting, in which a father and son inspired by Islamism opened fire on Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah, murdering 15 people and injuring 40 others.
“Holocaust survivors and former hostages share a uniquely painful bond shaped by survival and resilience,” Pearl said. “After witnessing a mass shooting at a Chanukah event in Sydney, it felt even more urgent for our survivors to deliver these care packages now, spreading light at a moment that feels dark for the entire Jewish world. The resilience of the Holocaust survivors we assist, the former hostages, and now the survivors of the attack in Australia remind us that even in the face of hatred and violence, the Jewish people remain united.”
In a press release Blue Card said the care packages “carried profound meaning,” being filled to the brim with goods of all sorts, from blankets and water bottles to chap stick and even handwritten notes from the Holocaust survivors who sent them.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.